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Who Am I?

I'm a fan of the English language, both discussing it and using it to
write about my other passions: off-beat music and Bioware games. I've got a separate blog for each of
these fascinations because they don't combine as well as you might
think. I've got a dozen stories going and one of those novels that never seems to actually progress because...squirrel!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

While not a commonly-used word, annunciate can be easily confused with enunciate. In truth, I'd never heard the word until a co-worker did actually confuse the two. Naturally, I researched it.

Enunciate comes from the Latin root word, nuntius, meaning messenger. The prefix "ex" was added and shortened, and the word meant an announcement from a messenger. Over the centuries, however, the use, and thus the definition, have evolved. When you use enunciate now, you generally refer to careful and particular pronunciation of something. Do you see that root word, again?

Annunciate comes from the very same Latin word with the added prefix "ad", creating the word annuntiare. It meant, and still means, "to announce". Why, pray tell, do we need a longer word for announce? Obviously, we don't. That's likely why you rarely, if ever, hear it used, except in the most formal of settings. Lawyers may use it, as it has come to specifically refer to the announcement of a judicial sentence.

While I'm at it, I'll write about pronounce, or pronunciate, as well. Clearly, it shares the same root with the prefix "pro" attached. Pro now means "in favor of", but as a Latin preposition it meant "before" or "in front of". Now, the combination implies a less-public sense of announcement, although you're more likely to hear about a judge pronouncing sentence than annunciating it.

The grey shades of difference between these words make selecting the appropriate form rather more a matter of knowing your audience than exercising your vocabulary. If you enunciate your pronunciation, listeners can clearly understand your words. When writing, choose the words according to their common usage rather than their roots. If your readers will be distracted by annunciate when you could just as well use announce in the sentence, KISS - Keed It Simple, Sweetheart. If you don't, your readers may well renounce you.

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